A pharmacist may provide a patient with solid medicines such as tablets according to a prescription by a doctor. In order to provide the patient with the medicines, the pharmacist may package the medicines separately by the type and amount of one-time dose (separate package) in some cases, or the pharmacist may fill a medicine container such as a vial container with the medicines collectively in other cases.
As an apparatus for filling a vial container with medicines, a tablet packing apparatus disclosed in JP H10-258801 A (Patent Literature 1), for example, can be mentioned. The tablet packing apparatus includes a tablet feeder capable of delivering tablets in an amount according to the prescription to the vial container. The tablet feeder includes a housing body that houses tablets, and a rotor rotatably located within the housing body. As the rotor rotates, the tablets can be sequentially ejected from an outlet provided in the housing body. The ejected tablets are delivered to the vial container after being counted by a tablet passage sensor provided in the tablet packing apparatus. In the configuration disclosed in Patent Literature 1, an outlet is provided at one point per unit of tablet feeder.
The vial container is filled with a lot of tablets. Therefore, in order to reduce the time required for filling operation, the rotor needs to rotate at high speed.
However, when the rotor rotates at high speed, there is a possibility of failure of filling in an exact quantity due to the tablets jamming within the tablet feeder or counting errors occurring in the tablet passage sensor.
JP H7-165202 A (Patent Literature 2) discloses providing outlets at two points for one unit of tablet feeder. However, in the configuration disclosed in Patent Literature 2, separate packing apparatuses are connected to the respective outlets. Therefore, in attempts to rotate the rotor at high speed for reducing the time required for filling operation, filling in an exact quantity may be failed due to the tablets jamming within the tablet feeder or counting errors occurring in the tablet passage sensor, like in the configuration of Patent Literature 1.